


Dim As An Ember

by hazelandglasz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amnesiac Stiles Stilinski, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Miscommunication, Nobody is Dead, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4951537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/pseuds/hazelandglasz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>youre-brilliant asked<br/>That would be awesome. No rush. Prompt was: Stiles gets amnesia & pack don't want to tell him about the werewolf thing, but they're all living together & Derek living with them is hard to explain until someone says he's S's bf. Eventually S figures out that the others are werewolves and gets his memories back, but he keeps pretending so he can still "go out" with D until he lets slip that he knows. D admits that he was torn between wanting S to recover and pretending to be his bf forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dim As An Ember

How it happened is still unclear.

All they know is that Stiles fell during the last fight against the centaurs–and seriously, how the Hell did the prancing ponies even managed to sneak up on them–and that he’s not waking up.

That he’s lying in a hospital bed, looking paler than usual, which is saying something, and that he doesn’t appear to be in any pain.

Derek and Scott would know, they tried.

He’s just … unconscious.

That’s what hurts the most, when Derek thinks about it: to see Stiles so eerily still and quiet.

Melissa comes into the room, and all the heads turn to her.

“The doctors seem to think that he should wake up when the trauma dissipates,” she says, and the Pack collectively sighs in relief. “But …”

“But?” Scott asks, frowning as he stands up to get closer to the bed.

“But he might suffer from a slight … amnesia.”

“Stiles?” Lydia says in a small voice. “Stiles never forgets anything.”

“I know,” Melissa says, “but the brain works in mysterious ways.”

Derek closes his eyes and rubs his cheeks. “So what should we do?” he asks tiredly.

“Well, the most important thing is to keep him from getting a shock,” Melissa replies with a small smile. “Whatever he says when he wakes up should be your starting point.”

“So, if he forgot about …,” Kira starts, flashing her eyes and making clawing motions with her hands.

“Yeah, that kind of shock,” Melissa replies with a fervent nod.

Scott groans something that sounds suspiciously like “not the secrets again”, and Derek sighs. “How are we supposed to explain that we are all living together?” he asks, including all the pack members in a wide gesture.

“Let’s wait and see how much he remembers,” Melissa says to appease them. “For all we know, he might just forget how he got that big bump on the back of his head.”

—

So they wait.

And wait.

When days turn into weeks, Scott and Derek take turns to stay by Stiles’ side while still managing to sleep and take care of the pack and the different threats (minor, for the most part) that they have to face.

They work hard on convincing the Sheriff that Stiles would have them all pelted if they let him sleep on the hospital chair, and it takes a formal promise to let him know any change in Stiles’ status to have him going back home.

Derek is actually typing what informations they gathered on the centaurs into the Bestiary when Stiles taps his fingers on the bed.

Derek nearly sends everything flying as he stands up, hands shaking over Stiles’.

“Stiles?” he asks softly, and in the distance, he can hear Scott dropping his plastic coffee cup in the trash and rushing back to the room.

Stiles turns his head on his pillow, wincing, his fingers tightening on the blanket.

Scott opens the door more delicately than Derek expected, and Derek takes a step back to let him get closer to the bed.

“Stiles?” Scott asks, his tone matching Derek’s but he takes the step Derek refrained from doing, closing his fingers around Stiles’.

Derek can see that this time around, Scott’s veins do turn black and he is simultaneously worried–because he certainly doesn’t want Stiles to be in pain–and relieved–because if he can feel pain, that means that Stiles is back.

“Come on, bro,” Scott says gently, low and reassuring. “We’re all waiting for you.”

Another groan, and Derek can hear the moment Stiles wakes up, his heartbeat returning to that hummingbird rhythm that used to annoy him and is now one of the constant of his life.

“ ‘ott?” Stiles mumbles, and Derek is out of the room in a flash to get Melissa and a doctor.

Melissa rushes in the room, and Derek waits in the hallway for a moment, absently texting the pack and the sheriff about Stiles’ return to the world of the living while pondering his options.

He could return to the room, to see how much Stiles remembers, or he could wait here for Scott or Melissa or anybody to tell him that the coast is clear, so to speak.

But it takes Scott’s softly whispered “shit”, audible only for werewolf’s ears, to bring him back to the room.

Stiles is sitting up, fingers clenching and relaxing on top of the blanket, and his eyes find him like a laser.

“And  _who_ are you?”

It hurts more than Derek thought it would, but damn, he’s not sure his healing will handle that.

Scott’s hand comes to cup the knot of his shoulder in support, and Stiles frowns at them.

“Kept something from me, Scott?’ Stiles asks, voice teasing, but there is an edge to it.

“You mean, in addition to the fact that this is not 2010 and that we’re actually living with some friends in a house on the border of the preserve?” Scott replies, just as teasingly, making some of the tension in Stiles’ shoulders melt away. “Nope, sorry to disappoint. This is Derek, one of the friends I talked about.”

Stiles’ eyes return to Derek, scanning him in such a familiar manner that Derek smiles in relief.

Stiles’ heartbeat quickens, and there is that unmistakable scent of electricity and saffron that Derek has associated with Stiles’ being aroused for so long that he almost didn’t pay attention to it anymore.

Scott wrinkles his nose and sneezes to cover it, and Melissa shoos them both out of the room to check on Stiles’ vitals.

In the hallways, they find the rest of the pack waiting for them.

“What now?” Allison asks, hugging herself. “So we’re all roommates, and that’s it?”

“We let him find his bearings,” Scott says, voice loaded with Alpha control. “Give him some time.”

“What about the Full Moon?” Erica asks, checking something on her phone. “It’s in 10 days.”

“We practice control in that lapse of time,” Derek says, taking his place at Scott’s side like a good second in command. “We don’t know what a shock could do to Stiles’ psyche, and he’s already trying to wrap his head around the fact that he lost five years of his life as it is.”

They all sigh and nod, but Lydia gives Derek a long, searching look.

“How will you explain?” she asks, in that infuriating way she has–Derek blames Deaton’s influence. And Peter. It’s always safe to blame Peter anyway.

“Explain what?”

“That your stuff is in his room, and vice versa.”

Scott looks at him with a frown, before beaming at him. “You just have to pretend that you’re dating!”

“Because  _that_ won’t be a shock to his psyche?” Derek says under his breath, looking sideways at his former Betas who are nodding fervently.

“Rude,” Scott says, before opening his hands in a “what can you do” gesture. “It won’t be more of a shock than ‘you’re spending a lot of time in Derek’s room because you two are the strategists of the pack because, yeah, we’re a pack. Of werewolves. No, not you, but you’re still pack’, don’t you think?”

There is no denying that dating Derek is less shocking than supernatural creatures.

“Try to be convincing,” Erica tells him, patting his shoulder. Derek would believe in the show of support if she didn’t have that twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

Oh, she must love that, the little vixen, see Derek  _act_ like he’s in a relationship with the one person he really wants a relationship with.

—

On the day of Stiles’ release from the hospital, Derek is de facto the one that goes to pick him up, and even from the car, Derek can see the blush on his face.

Scott must have told him that they are boyfriends then.

“Hey,” Stiles says in greeting as he sits down in the car, gingerly resting his head against the leather.

“Hey yourself,” Derek says with a soft smile. “You comfortable?”

“Very,” Stiles says, glancing at Derek’s hand on the shift before snapping his head back to look outside.

Derek shrugs it off and starts driving towards the House.

“I really don’t see how I could forget  _that_ ,” Stiles says softly, barely above a whisper.

“Forget what?” Derek asks, carefully keeping his eyes on the road.

“That you’re … that we…,” Stiles stammers, looking for his words for the first time since Derek has let him into his life. “That you’re my boyfriend!”

Doesn’t that sound  _exceptional_?

“It’s not your fault,” Derek says calmly, and on instinct, lets go of the shift to pat Stiles’ knee. “I’m not mad or anything.”

“Can we … can we take it slow?” Stiles asks. “I know that we must have been going at it like rabbits, I mean, you  _look_ like sex, but I’m not–I mean, I would love to, obviously, but–”

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“We can start from the beginning,” Derek offers, his heart clenching as he already thinks how he will lose it all when-if Stiles gets his memory back.

But in spite of it, in spite of everything, Derek would rather have a shot at something fleeting than nothing at all.

—

The sight of Derek and Stiles cuddling on the couch or reaching for each other becomes a familiar one, and soon, it’s almost like nothing happened.

Stiles is sometimes lost in thoughts, and he’s more quiet than he used to be, but Scott tells the Pack that he was that way after his mother died.

Like, this is Stiles’ modus operandi to make sense of the world around him when he feels confused.

Derek thinks that it’s a good thing: if he’s confused by what is around him, it means that something is telling him that something isn’t right, that there is another truth that is hidden in the folds of his brain.

And Derek does his best to keep at bay a little voice in the back of his mind that whispers that maybe, it would be better if Stiles didn’t recover from his amnesia.

Better for him, since it keeps him away from the fights still happening around town.

Better for Derek too, since it keeps Stiles in his arms.

As temporary as it may be, Derek is happy, content to be Stiles’ boyfriend for now.

They cuddle, which is a treat in itself, and they kiss, which is a whole new level of happy confusion, and they make out, bodies rolling together on Derek’s bed.

But beyond the physical relief it represents, Derek finds peace in their mixed scents permeating all of his belongings, his bed, his clothes.

Sometimes, it feels like his very skin is embedded with Stiles’ scent now, and Derek doesn’t want to let it go.

He’s not ready to let it go.

And when Stiles shakes himself from whatever thought was holding his mind and looks at him with a soft smile, Derek doesn’t quite know how he’ll ever do.

—

_Something is not_ right.

_Stiles cannot shake the images he gets in flashes, of Scott, and Erica, and Derek with claws instead of nails and fangs coming out of their mouths, and eyes flashing in the night, and injuries sewing themselves._

_Of himself with sparks at his fingertips, and rings of ashes glowing in an alley._

_Those images overlap with the scenes he’s observing, and in a way that has nothing to do with his imagination._

_It feels too real to be just a figment of his im_ –

“Stiles?”

Stiles blinks and looks up towards the voice that stopped him mid-thoughts.

Derek is looking at him, hand already stretched between them as if to reach for him, a frown of concern on his face and Stiles can’t help the small smile he gives him.

_That look is familiar too–except that Stiles remembers it with more dirt._

_And more blood._

_What the fucking fuck._

“Everything okay?”

Stiles reaches for Derek’s hand and pats it over the back of the couch. “Just dandy.”

Derek’s frown remains, but he brings their joined hands to his mouth to kiss the back of Stiles’ hand, and the disturbing thoughts melt away.

—

Weirdly enough, it takes a friendly baseball match to shake everything out of its new axis.

The whole Pack had managed to get through two full moons without Stiles mentioning anything out of the ordinary, but they had to accept a game with Satori’s pack–for peace sake.

Satori knew about Stiles’ … condition, and they all agreed to keep it “powerless”, to keep Stiles in his bubble of ignorance of the supernatural.

But when Stiles mumbles that it would be more fun to watch if they just all go lupine already, the game is brought to an halt.

“Oops,” Stiles says, blushing under the scrutiny of two packs of wolves and a banshee.

Satori takes her betas away, nodding towards Scott and the two Alphas agreeing that they’ll have to do that sort of companionable meeting again in the future.

“So you know?” Erica asks Stiles, hands on her hips and a look that varies from pissed to impressed on her face.

“I … do,” Stiles replies, looking contrite, fidgeting his hands over his lap. “I started remembering fragments of everything, until it just made sense.”

“When?” Scott asks, and the wolves all bow their heads to the slight command laced in his voice.

But Stiles is, as always, immune to that. “Five days ago?” he replies, the question mark obvious in his tone and his grimace.

Derek freezes and he isn’t sure if his face is turning pale or burning up.

_Five days ago_ , they went behind the lines they had carefully traced to map their relationship.

_Five days ago_ , he went behind the lines he had drawn for himself around his body and his heart.

_Five days ago_ , they had sex in Derek’s bed and Stiles’ touch is still burning his skin in the most delicious way.

Boyd turns a quizzical look towards him and Isaac bites on a laugh, while Kira and Erica sniff in unison before looking away.

Jackson doesn’t have their thoughtfulness. “You fucked his brain back on track, Hale?” he says with a smirk, and Derek’s only regret is that he’s too far from Jackson to be the one to smack him over the head.

_Thanks Kira._

“That’s it, though, isn’t it,” Lydia says thoughtfully. “You two being … intimate is what shook Stiles’ amnesia.”

“Talk about rocking his world,” Isaac mutters, only to recoil in front of Boyd and Erica’s twin glares.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Scott says, finally taking pity on them. “Derek, you want to do it here or …?”

“Here is fine,” Derek says, chin stuck to his chest as he scuffs his foot against the dirt.

“Alright–see you at the house later,” Scott says before clapping Stiles’ shoulder. “And you, no more keeping secrets on getting your memory back.”

“Scout’s honor,” Stiles replies with a jaunty salute and a small smile.

They run away from the field, leaving the couple alone under the harsh light of the spots.

Are they still one, though?

A couple?

Derek starts pacing, and he can feel Stiles fidgeting before standing up to get closer.

“Why?”

Stiles stops in his tracks, and they look at each other for a couple of seconds. Stiles doesn’t do him the offense of asking what he means–he’s smarter than that–and puts his hands in his pockets.

“It really came to me in the middle of the night,” he says softly, darting his eyes to the ground between them. “After we … after we made love.”

The choice of words is not lost on Derek, but he simply nods, keeping his mouth shut into a tight line.

“I woke up and just like that, I remembered everything. The werewolves, the magic, the centaurs,” Stiles says, looking up and searching Derek’s face. “The only thing that didn’t make sense was why you would pretend to even love me.”

The sentence hits Derek like a hook to the chin, laced with wolfsbane.

“But afterwards, you kept on being that … perfect, by-the-book boyfriend,” Stiles continues, walking away and turning his back on Derek, one hand leaving his pocket to ruffle his hair. “And it was just …”

“Just what?” Derek prompts when the silence stretches too far to be comfortable.

“Just too good to give up,” Stiles says, looking over his shoulder with a sad smile. “I’m sorry,” he adds, head bowed once again towards the ground. “I shouldn’t have used you like that, I shouldn’t have lied–to y’all.”

“No, you really shouldn’t have,” Derek says, slowly making his way closer to Stiles.

He can see that way the young man’s shoulders slump under the disapproval in his words, and he can hear the way his heartbeat quickens.

He can smell the shame drafting from Stiles in wave, but there is something sweeter underneath the sharp, lemony scent–something that reminds Derek of the candies Laura used to love, sour apples and raspberries.

_Hope?_

“Can you blame me, though?” Stiles asks, a deprecating smile on his face. “I know that you don’t … feel that way about me, I had to take my chance.”

“You know, Stiles,” Derek says, stopping Stiles before he can dig a deeper hole for himself, “for someone as smart as you, you can be really, really dumb.”

Stiles looks up from his shoes with an indignant look on his face.

Derek steps closer, until their shoes are touching. “You really think I could have faked it?” he asks softly, reaching for Stiles’ chin to force him to look at him. “Let you fuck me–”

“Make love,” Stiles corrects, voice barely above a whisper, and Derek smiles at him.

_Beautiful idiot._

“Do you really think I would have let you  _make love to me_ ,” he repeats, insisting on Stiles’ choice of words teasingly, “if I didn’t feel that way about your stupid face?”

“Kind of sending mixed signals here,” Stiles mumbles, his eyes darting across Derek’s face, looking for a loophole in his reasoning. “Am I smart, am I dumb, do you love  _mmhmph_ –”

Derek is glad to have Stiles back.

All of Stiles, with his flaws and his blabber and his flailing and his sarcastic little shit attitude.

All of him, for him to kiss and love and enjoy and argue with.

All it took was a knock to the head, after all.


End file.
